Areas and Perspectives Flashcards
What are the defining principles of the social area?
-All human behaviour occurs in a social context and is influenced by the actual, imaged, or implied presence of others
-Other people and the environment influence our behaviour and thought processes
-External influences make more of an impact than internal (situational > dispositional)
What are the strengths of the social area?
- Helps us understand how behaviour can be influenced by other people and the situation you are in
-Provides explanations for behaviour so is useful
-Supports the nurture side of the nature/nurture debate
-Prefers research being conducted in natural environments
What are the weaknesses of the social area?
-Deterministic
-Reductionist - underestimates the power of individual differences (eg. some people will never obey)
-Often raises ethical issues through deception or lack of withdrawal
-Snapshot studies
What are the defining principles of the cognitive area?
-Internal mental processes are important in understanding behaviour
-Humans are like information processors; input, process, output. The output/behaviour is due to the mental processing
-Mental processing can be tested scientifically
What are the strengths of the cognitive area?
-Scientific and provide accurate unbiased data
-Quantitative data
-Useful - lots of practical applications eg. when interviewing witnesses, the police should avoid using leading questions
What are the weaknesses of the cognitive area?
-Reductionist ignoring biological causes of behaviour
-Usually studied through laboratory experiments which may lack realism and ecological validity
-The only way to study mental processes is through self report or the behaviours that are shown because of it
What are the defining principles of the developmental area?
-Interested in the psychological processes of development. Change and development is an ongoing process which continues throughout our lifetime
-Behaviour may be learned (nurture) or innate (biological/nature)
-Early experiences affect later development
-Development may happen in predetermined stages
What are the strengths of the developmental area?
-Useful - gives explanations to why people demonstrate different intellects, social skills, and emotions and can help us to raise children
-Adds to the nature/nurture debate
-Participants can be studied in their natural environment
-Easy to apply to everyday life as we are constantly learning and developing due to maturation
What are the weaknesses of the developmental area?
-Theories about pre-determined stages of development are too rigid
-Focuses mainly on childhood development and tends to neglect how adults mature
-Behaviour determined by upbringing, so suggests less free will
-Studied can take a lot of time if done longitudinally
-Ethics as children can’t give informed consent
What are the defining principles of the biological area?
-All thoughts, feelings, and behaviours have a biological cause
-All that is psychological is first biological
-Human genes have adapted our physiology and behaviour to the environment
-Psychology should investigate the brain, nervous system, and genes.
-Assumes our behaviour is caused by chemical and physical changes in the body
-Nature over nurture
What are the strengths of the biological area?
-Very scientific and objective
-Strong counter argument to nurture debate
-Research methods are very reliable (lab experiments)
What are the weaknesses of the biological area?
-Reductionist as it ignores other explanations of behaviour such as the environment
-Does not explain how the mind and body interact
-Research methods lack ecological validity
-Can be difficult to interpret physiological measurements such as MRI scans
What are the defining principles of the individual differences area?
-Individuals differ in their behaviour and personal qualities so no one is average
-Everyone is genetically unique and this uniqueness is displayed through their behaviour. So everyone behaves differently
-All behaviour can be measured
-Behaviour is the result of dispositional factors
What are the strengths of the individual differences area?
-Allows psychologists to learn more about human behaviours because all behaviours are studied
-Allows psychologists to measure differences between individuals in qualities such as personality, intelligence, and memory
-Studied are often high in ecological validity as they often take place in natural environments
-Allows both qualitative and quantitative data to be gathered
-Practical/beneficial applications for treatment
What are the weaknesses of the the individual differences area?
-Research methods used may not be objective, so open to bias lowering the external validity (case studied)
-It creates divisions between people because some are seen as different
-Difficult to define and measure things such as personality and intelligence
-Ethics - protection from psychological harm of being called different
-Socially sensitive
What are the defining principles of the Behaviourist perspective?
-Psychology is a science and the only way to be objective is to observe/measure behaviour (ie. the mind is like a black box, we can’t see the processing)
-All behaviour is learned through Social learning or classical/operant conditioning
-Behaviour is caused by external influences
-When we are born, the mind is a blank slate
What is social learning theory?
Learning through observation and replication. Can only learn if you have: attention, retain, replicate, and motivated. Need a role model
What is operant conditioning?
Learning through consequence (ie. positive/negative reinforcement and positive/negative punishment)
What is classical conditioning?
Learning through association. An unconditioned stimulus has an unconditioned response so when a neutral stimulus is brought in, the subject is conditioned to have a conditioned response where the neutral stimulus becomes the conditioned stimulus
What are strengths of the behaviourist perspective?
- Very scientific and usually under controlled experimental methods
- Strong counter argument to the nature side of the debate
- Has many practical applications
What are the weaknesses of the behaviourist perspective?
- Deterministic
- Reductionist as it ignores mental processes such as moods, thoughts, and feelings
- Lacks ecological validity
- Blames parents so is socially sensitive
What are the defining principles for the psychodynamic perspective?
- Behaviour is influenced by the interaction of drives and forces within the personality
- Behaviour comes from the unconscious personality (iceberg analogy)
- Personality is shaped by relationships, experience and conflict over time, particularly during childhood
- The personality is made up of the Id (pleasure), the ego (controls the Id), and the superego (morality)
What are some of the defence mechanisms Freud put forward?
- Denial
- Repression - pushing thoughts and bad memories into their unconscious
- Regression - going back to a younger, childlike, immature, way of behaving
- Displacement - redirecting an emotion away from the object or person that caused it
- Reaction formation - where the ego takes feelings that are unacceptable and makes the conscious feel strongly opposite
What were the 5 psychosexual stages of development?
Oral, anal, phallic, latency, and genital
